by Manda Scott
It was too late for speech but the amber eye held his and blinked twice before the white rolled up and was gone for ever. He felt the truth as a punch in the stomach and the duplicity of it swamped his reason. Standing, he slashed his blade across the lifeless throat.
“Bán!”
Iccius called him, frantically. Men were running at him, all in the green and black striped cloaks of the Coritani. Bán hauled his blade clear and threw himself at the red mare, running with her for three strides before mounting. A hand caught at his tunic. He hacked down twice and severed two fingers before it let go. Free, he wheeled the mare in towards the centre of the clearing, calling Iccius to follow him. On the other side of the fire, Macha was down. Bán could see her black hair fanning the turf and the white of her face below it. A bubble of pain rose through him and was washed away, to be brought back later, when the gods gave more time. Further over, beside the smouldering remains of the fire, Breaca was fighting on foot, with Eburovic on one side and Airmid on the other. It was impossible not to feel awe at the sight of her. She blazed as a single point of fire amidst the carnage. Her hair burned like molten bronze. Her eyes gathered the rising sun and made it brighter. She killed with a wild precision and the ravens of death danced over her, singing.
Bán came to himself. “Breaca!” He pitched his voice high and saw her glance in his direction. “They are the men of the war eagle—Amminios’s men. Trinovantes, not Coritani.”
His sister grimaced and raised an acknowledging arm, then gestured again towards the horses. The entire Eceni herd had been gathered together on the margins of the river. Three Trinovantian warriors were walking in on them, whip-handed, trying to drive them across to the Sun Hound’s territory. Not while he lived. He was Bán hare-hunter, warrior of the Eceni, brother to the serpent-spear, and he would die before they took his horses. Yelling his sister’s name as a battle cry, he spun the mare and kicked her on and they broke through the circle of enemy warriors as a spear through a straw target. At his side, Iccius clung to the dun colt as it fought its way through beside him. Ten strides and he was there.
“Bán!”
The scream came from his left, where Iccius had been. He could not turn; an ageing warrior with white-streaked hair and the stealth of long practise had come at him from the right. The mare, unaccountably, had missed her killing stroke and it was left to Bán to save them both. It was the stuff of his daydreams: true combat, fought between heroes. He felt an absence at his side, like a gap in a wall that lets in the wind, and knew that Hail should have been there to make things perfect. Still, it was close enough. He raised a wordless yell of hope and fury and swung on the forehand at the white skin of the warrior’s throat.
“Bán! Behind you. It’s a trap!”
The words reached him but made no sense. His blade bit clean air, pulling him off balance. The grizzled warrior grinned. Bán twisted his arm for the backswing. A shadow fell beyond his shoulder. Too late to turn, he saw it and delayed his swing. The blow to his head struck like lightning. The sun exploded and ushered in night, catching the pain and folding it in before he could cry out. The mare screamed for him, or maybe it was Iccius, and he felt himself fall. Somewhere, in another world, Amminios stood over him, laughing.
“Breaca!”
She heard the shout distantly, filtering through the clash and chaos of battle. She was going to die; she was certain of that. It was the dream of her long-nights all over again and she stood in the place of the ancestors, preparing to die with dignity and honour against insuperable odds. The war eagles were too many, too well armed, too well prepared, and the Eceni were none of those things.
Earlier, seeing the parallels, she had prayed to the elder grandmother, asking if there was anything she could do, any change she could effect that would make the sides more even. The only answer had been silence, and that was enough to let her know that she neared the end and the best she could do was to die well when the time came. The knowledge of it brought a peace that swooped through her in the still moments between the fighting, when one man died and another had yet to take his place, or in the long spaces between heartbeats when the singing blade gave some respite and she and the enemy breathed.
At those times, she stepped beyond herself and saw the carnage as Briga did, from outside and above and with a sharpness of interest that did not allow feeling. It was not as the singers made it; no-one had sung of void bowels, torn intestines, blood and splintered bone and the agony of time taken dying if the blow is not a clean one—but nor had they captured, however hard they might have striven for it, the absolute, immaculate, crystalline ecstasy that filled her, the certainty that it was for this she had been born. Briga, mother of death, rode the small space of the clearing, casting her ravens at those fated to die, and Breaca, warrior of the Eceni, did the god’s bidding with a joy that threatened to rend her heart.
“Breaca! Bán is down. Amminios has him—”
Bán. He mattered. And it was Airmid who spoke, so she was still alive. Breaca smashed the boss of her shield into the face of the man who threatened her father’s sword arm and took a step back.
“Where?”
“On the far side of the river, beyond the ford. Amminios has his body. He’ll desecrate him as he did the dun filly.”
She had heard of that; Caradoc had told her. It defied all the gods and left the spirit wandering without a home. For a horse, it was obscene. For her brother, it was appalling; unthinkable. She turned. A flap of yellow, bright as a hawk’s eye, showed amongst the dusky greens of the riverbank. Above it, limp red hair flowed out from beneath an iron helmet. An unstained, unused shield showed the mark of the war eagle, so like the legionary eagle of Rome, as did the shields of the three men with him. Alone amongst the attackers, Amminios and his closest honour guard had not taken the guise of the Coritani. It was an unnecessary conceit. She would have known him anywhere.
“Amminios!”
The man wheeled his horse. Her brother lay across his thighs. Blood splashed, life-bright, from the dark mess of his head. Behind, a grizzled warrior on a bay gelding held Iccius by the hair, one arm blocking his mouth to stem the screaming. On the far side, a youth with a bronze helmet led the red Thessalian mare and the dun colt, keeping a safe distance from both.
The grizzled warrior spoke and Amminios laughed. He raised his arm in mocking salute. His voice carried over the water in tones that aped his father. “He is dead. I will honour his body. My men will do the same for yours.” He wheeled his horse and pointed ahead. As one, the four men spurred their mounts forward.
“No!”
She would have tried to follow then, but Amminios had planned well; his parting salute had been for his warriors, not for Breaca. The cold wind of the god warned her so that she dodged the blade that sought her life and spun left into screaming, lethal mayhem. Grimacing, Airmid struck past her shoulder and a man with grey hair lost his right eye, and then, howling, his soul. Breaca crushed her shield against the dead man’s chest, using the weight of her shoulder to throw him down. She trod on his face as she moved forward and felt his cheek break. In that moment, Bán was forgotten; every part of her strove to kill and not to die. Eburovic, the solid core of her life, came to her right side and she offered herself once more as his shield, freeing his sword arm to strike.
So long ago, Airmid had offered to go for the shields. She should have let her; she might have lived to bring them back and the odds would have been much better. Too late now. To her left, a bull of a man with the eagle large on both upper arms rushed Sinochos and his nephew. Iron smashed through flesh to bone and ’Tagos went down, squealing. Sinochos danced to the right, stooped to grab the boy’s fallen sword and straightened, swinging both blades like threshing scythes. His battle cry cracked with the edge of madness. The bull-man lost his vitals and half his face. He crashed to the earth on the body of a young Eceni who had lain there so long he was slick with the gore of others. They embraced in death.
“T
ogether. We must stand together.” Eburovic bellowed it in Breaca’s ear. He shoved her towards Sinochos and pulled Airmid along behind. He was tiring; she could feel it in him, a dragging of the reflexes that said the song of his blade ran weaker. Briga hovered by his shoulder, a raven on each wrist. A small part of Breaca denied it and was crushed to silence.
“Where’s Macha?”
Macha was down, he must know that. Breaca pointed with her blade’s tip. “There. By Dubornos.”
Dubornos had been amongst the first to fall. Macha had gone to tend him and had been caught by a thrown spear. There had been few of those; the Eceni had wrenched them from the turf and thrown them back and they had stopped coming. Only the foolish make a gift of weapons to the enemy and the men of the war eagle were far from that. They stood now in the same half-circle that had begun it—fewer of them, but harder to kill. These were the survivors, warriors who had lost count of the battles fought and won and had long ago lost their fear of the dark. The first rush had not succeeded and now they held back, shedding the green-striped cloaks of the Coritani and wiping themselves clean of the false marks on their forearms. There was no honour in pretence and these were men for whom such things mattered.
Breaca counted the odds. Seven still stood of the Eceni, counting herself; two were wounded and would fall at the next clash, which left five. Amminios’s eagles were eleven, who had once been too many to count. Pride buoyed her heart; her people had fought fiercely and when the bodies were found the tale would speak well of them. Her father felt it, too. She sensed a tightening in him, a promise sworn to the dead and the living in the presence of the god. He clasped her shoulder briefly and slid his hand down her arm.
“Give me your shield.”
He was her father; it was his right to die shielded. She shrugged off the shoulder strap and felt the sudden floating lightness of her arm, and the cold. Without thinking, she cast about, searching for a spare blade to bear in her left hand.
“Here.” Airmid nudged her elbow. The blade she offered was an enemy one, longer than the serpent-blade and wider. A bronze fox ran on the pommel, its brush curved over the line of its back. Blood made the hilt slick. Breaca took a chance and knelt to wipe it clean on her tunic. The eagles were not yet ready. When they came together, it would be in the old way, fighting in pairs until the last ones left standing held the field. She believed, because it mattered to do so, that the enemy would kill the wounded cleanly, as Briga and the old laws dictated, and would not take slaves. It occurred to her that Airmid should know it, too, and her father. She pushed herself to her feet, the better half of her attention still on the fox-hilted sword in her left hand. “Eburovic, they…”
He was gone. Her eye caught the blur of white that was her shield and the fine, high keening that was the sound of the she-bear blade sweeping down for the kill. Her mind fed her the action piecemeal; the war eagles had been as inattentive as she, and her father had chosen, this once, not to shout. Still, the noise of his feet on the turf had given some warning and the leading man had time to raise his sword. That one died. The one beside him was caught by the edge of his shield and spun round into the full edge of Eburovic’s blade. It sheared the cap of his head like the broken top of an egg and, alone amongst the dead that day, he died without a sound.
Her father spun on his left foot. The shield—her shield—smashed outwards with his fist behind it and the face of a blond-haired warrior was dashed to fragments on the boss. The serpent-spear became invisible, one more smear in a crazy wash of red.
These three her father killed before the enemy came to themselves and closed on him and the first of their blades caught him above the belt in a sweeping cut that gutted him, cleanly, like a deer. They had not expected to catch him so easily and the shock of it brought them up short. In the sudden rush of silence, the quiet sloop of his body, spilling, was the sound of the world as it ended.
“Eburovic, no!”
Breaca passed beyond honour, or even sanity. Scything twin blades as Sinochos had done, she hurled herself forward, killing without care.
The men of the war eagle died in pairs around her and she chose not to count. Airmid and Sinochos stood together, guarding her back. Others came in from the edges, stabbing. It lasted moments, or lifetimes, and the last of the enemy died as the ravens took her father’s soul.
She would not believe he was gone. Kneeling, she held his hand between her palms and pleaded with him to talk to her. His eyes were open, his face folding in on itself, exchanging pain for peace. A man so at ease with himself could not really be dead. She kissed him and tasted the salt of her own tears mixed with blood that was not all his.
“Breaca, let him go.” Airmid came to kneel at her side and pressed a finger to the wide-open eye. The surface was clear but the lids did not close at the touch. A cool hand closed over both of hers and drew them away. The one voice she could hear said, “He is gone. You must leave him for Briga. We have the living to care for, else he died for nothing.”
The words reached her slowly and made little sense. She was in a different place, walking with her father to the river. His shade walked with the resilience of youth and there was a joy about him she had not seen since the death of her mother. She watched him with awe and wonder and felt herself smile.
Airmid said, “Breaca, listen to me. Macha is still alive. If we can get her home, she may remain so. He would want her made safe.”
She frowned. She cared for Macha. Her father had cared for Macha. “How badly is she hurt?”
“A spear took her in the chest. She can breathe but only with great pain and she can neither walk nor ride.”
“We will make a litter and drag her.”
“Sinochos has made it. You have to come. We can’t leave you.”
So she had been with Eburovic longer than it seemed. She tried to think. Airmid was there to help. Brown eyes searched hers. Cool hands gripped her wrists. She looked up from her father and met a strength that shamed her. Making an effort, she said, “How many others wounded?”
“Eight who will live. ’Tagos is the worst. He will lose his sword arm, but he will live if we can stop the bleeding and the stump does not rot. The others’ wounds are deep but not fatal. I can begin work on them here, but we should take them to the roundhouse immediately. Forgive me, but there is no time to build platforms for the bodies. We will take their shields and honour them as battle-dead. Eburovic would have understood.”
Eburovic. The voice swam and faded. Her father stood on the bank of a river. Water the colour of moonlight hushed past his feet. Hazels, nine-stemmed for Nemain, dipped their leaves to brush the surface. An otter swam midstream. A salmon rose, bearing an acorn in its mouth. The far bank was hidden in mist although Eburovic stepped out as if it were only a stride away. He turned and waved to her, his face alight with memory and the promise of home. Weeping, she lost her sight and when she found it again he was gone.
She blinked and looked around. Airmid was at her side again, although in a different place. It was later than it had been; the sun stood higher over the trees and the mist had burned long ago from the water. Someone had caught the horses, killed those too badly injured to move and saddled the rest. The grey battle mare waited for her, still wet about the forelegs and muzzle where she had been washed clean of blood. A flap of skin hung loose above one eye where a sword-tip had caught it and the long, scored mark of a spear-thrust showed along her ribs, but she could stand and walk and could be ridden. Breaca raised her eyes. Airmid’s met them, waiting. The dreamer was deathly tired; it dragged at her, turned her skin grey.
Breaca became aware that others were ready to go, waiting only for her. She pushed herself upright. “You have done all the work. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You were with the gods. It takes time to come back.”
“Maybe.” She looked around. The clearing was quiet. There were more dead than before; their shades filed past in twos and threes, slowly.
“Who kill
ed the wounded?”
“I did. Sinochos helped. We made the invocations to Briga.”
They were at peace; it could be seen so. The living bore the pain of it, the hard decisions of who amongst friends might be saved and who not. Airmid’s exhaustion became clear, and the greatness of heart that had taken on the task without hesitation. Old pain twisted in familiar places, a thing to be dealt with later, when there was time.
Breaca gripped an offered arm and was helped to rise. Her blade lay sheathed and silent on the bank. Her shield had been cleaned. Her spear had broken early on; the two pieces had been found and brought together. A memory pushed at her, of a boy’s voice predicting a broken spear and a betrayal by one who wore the yellow cloak of the Trinovantes. She caught sight of Macha lying nearby on the litter, eyes closed tight to hold in the pain. The hound whelp, Cygfa, burrowed amongst the bandages at her chest, a minor consolation for a son lost in battle. Bán’s death and the theft of his body sawed suddenly at Breaca’s heart, demanding vengeance. She began to think more clearly.
“How many of our people are still alive?”
“All of those who fought at the end. Of the wounded who may live are Macha, ’Tagos, Dubornos—”
“Dubornos? But he’s dead. He fell first. I saw him go down before the first wave of spears was over.”
Airmid said, sourly, “He fell. He was not badly wounded. He could have fought on but he chose to feign death. It is a good way to stay alive for one who would not die a warrior.”
